Further, sin is, in a pre-eminent degree, the foe of all truth. The hypocrite is in a special ense the child of the father of lies (Jn 8"). Hypocrisy is not a mere sin of impulse, but is tl e opposite of everything by which we may lay hold of truth and be delivered. As surely as faitli leaches out towards truth, hypocrisy struggles against it. Not being able to "live with truth, it in defend itself only by persecution. 'Ye seek to kill me because my wcjrd hatli not free course in
jou' (S"). The same spiiil i le their fathers
1 ill the prophets as .-i, ii:ilin,il consequence of re- jecting their messnuc, ^nid n is only another hy]5ocrisy which makes tli.' .l.-dinlants repudiate their fathers' deeds wliilc clin i-liing tlieir fathers' .spirit. The justification for (In- terrible assanlton the Pharisees in Mt 'Jo. is (h.it, sitting in Moses' seat, they show a .spiiit with Mliich truth cannot dwell. l''he deep shadow is .-ijways in the bright sunlight, and the dce|i conn]ilion is always in the place of opportunity, 'i'lie I 'ha risees neither enter the Kingdom nor suffer others fo enter. They are abundantly zealous, but in a bad cause. They pervert truth, deliase it, fight against it. No appeal can touch them, and in the end their house is left to them desolate.
Then the evil of hypocrisy is more than negative. It does not stop with pretending to need signs, while it pays no attention to the evidence it has, and would be convinced by no evidence (Mt 16'' ''). Hypocrisy is also an active leaven — a dangerous assimilative principle— against the corruption of which no warning can be too ample, It is more
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HYPOCRISY
than the shadow of truth, the absence of faith. It definitely works to debase the whole man, just as faith works to regeneiate hun. In addition to refusing to enter in, it takes away the key of knowledge (Lk IP-). Against everything con- nected with the Kingdom of Heaven it is actively hostile.
In the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 6'*-) hypocrisy is set over against the Kingdom of Heaven as its opposite and its negation. In the realm of hypoc- risy appearances meet every requirement ; in the Kingcfom of Heaven all is judged by the heart. Christ says, the issues of life are out of the heart alone ; hypocrisy says, they are mainly out of cere- monies. Of the whole standard of the Kingdom of Heaven hypocrisy is the daily practical denial — its broad result being the external righteousness of tlie Scribes and Pharisees, without exceeding which we shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. So alien is the whole unreal pretence of religion, that there is a good secrecy at the other extreme from it. Deliberate care must be taken that one's righteousness be not done in the public eye. Not only is no trumpet to be sounded before us in the street ; our piaise is not even to iind an echo in our own heart. Not only may prayer never be used for show ; true prayer is with ourselves and our Father in secret alone. Not only may we not fast with a sad countenance ; the head is to be anointed and the face washed as on a day of festival. Hypocrisy is the opposite of that single- ness of eye which tills the whole body with light ; it turns the light that is in a man to darkness. It attempts to serve two masters while serving none. It sees motes in its brother's eye wliile ignor- ing beams in its own. It is in sheep's clothing without, and a ravening wolf within. It is the shadow of the light, tlie enemy of the truth. It is most of all hostile to the Kingdom of Heaven, just because that is the fullest light and the highest truth. Nor is that all. Hypocrisy, as the opposite and negation of the Kingdom of Heaven, is as ready to corrupt Christianity as it was to corrupt Judaism. Even Christ's name it is capable of turning into a substitute, not a synonym, for the will of the Father.
From all other vices men are delivered by the life of faith. For this reason our Lord never directly assails vices of impulse. The publican and the harlot He treated as the lost sheep He had come to seek. For them He set wide the door of the Kingdom. But the door. He knew, could never be made so narrow that the hypocrites would not at least appear to enter. Tlie new hypocrisy will be to come in Christ's name, saying, ' I am he ' (Mk 13"). Under that guise it will hide itself so dexterously as almost to deceive the elect ; and it will use its opportunity, as hypocrisy has always done, to strangle truth by persecution. Just because hypocrisy is thus an enemy in the camp poisoniu" the wells, our Lord deals with it openly, directly, negatively, by tlie method of denunciation, as with no other form of evil.
The supreme evil of hypocrisy, as the negation of the life of faith, appears still more clearly in what our Lord .says about the eternal sin. In John unbelief is spoken of as the abiding sin. ' For if ye believe not that I am lie, ye sliall die in your sins' (8-^). "ifet, from the context, it is apparent that the abiding evil is not the act of unbelief, but the absence of all love of the truth, of which the unbelief is the evidence. Christ came that the thoughts of many hearts should be revealed (Lk 2*>), and those who had cherished evil were as conspicuously displayed as those who had cherished good. The publican and the harlot who had secretly thirsted after righteousness came to be sho\vn to have faith, though all appear-